Newbie Q; Lunge form...

[Gnobility]

Hi - this is my first post here. I've used the MH forum from time to time, but it appears to be dying a slow death, so I thought I'd Cut & Paste my question regarding variations on lunges here:

I'm adding dumbbell lunges to my lowerbody routine tomorrow. I think DB lunges are kind of a strange exercise - I'm never sure how much weight to carry, because I usually stop as my stability diminishes rather than from muscle fatigue.

I went looking for online video demos and saw the "standard" form from Exrx.com:

http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/...s/DBLunge.html

...and then found a few sites with this approach that I haven't seen before:

http://www.axis-fitness.nl/html/videx.html

The second form looks as though it's a good deal more stable, I think I could weight to achieve muscle failure, rather than worry about stability with the Exrx form.

Thoughts, comments, advantages/disadvantages to each form?

Thanks

[Jean-Paul]

Neither is necessarily wrong. I personally prefer the first version, or walking lunges carrying DBs. The first one requires a little bit more of an explosive motion to get all the way back up. You can also do lunges with a bar across your back. Because a standard B-bell is too wide I will load up an EZ curl bar and do walking lunges with that. The bar seems just a tad more stable to me. You may also be using too narrow a foot stance. When I see clients struggling with lateral stability on a lunge it is often because they are doing what I call "tightwire" lunges. When I do a lunge, if I were to draw straight lines through both my feet in the lunge position, the lines would be about a good foot apart.

[Gnobility]

Thanks Jean Paul - I'll try opening my stance a bit.

Gn